Poetry for Our Future!
In 2021-22 VSEAL continued offering workshops through our Poetry for Our Future! outreach program. Our partner organizations were QPIRG, Spectrum Productions, Lasalle Elementary, the South Asian Women’s Community Centre, Unravelling in Rhymes, AGIR, Yellow Door, the Dawson Boys and Girls Club, Say Ça, Bridges Adult Learning Centre, For Francis Public Library, Sioux Lookout Public Library, and Kenora Public Library.
Facilitators work closely with partner organizations to design and develop workshops that are tailored to the specific needs of different community groups. Each workshop is participatory, creative, community-minded, and aimed to enhance literacy and literary skills. In 2021-22 our facilitators were Jessica Bebenek; Fan Wu; Zoe Sharpe; Heather Brunet; Kama La Mackerel; Partridge Boswell, Evan J; Angelic Goldsky; and Harleen Bhogal.
“As a woman of colour, I struggle to find accessible spaces where I can learn new concepts in creative writing and poetry. I have often been excluded from local writing programs because I cannot afford their fees. The workshops offered by VSEAL have not only been inclusive to my experience as a marginalized woman, but their workshops being free of charge has allowed me to participate in writing workshops otherwise closed to me.”
—participant, South Asian Women’s Community Centre
If you are able to donate we will acknowledge your generosity with a charitable tax receipt and a mention on our donor page (if desired). Your contribution makes it possible not only for Vallum to continue publishing but for poetry to continue to flourish far into the future.
Vallum: Contemporary Poetry 2022
This year we published two issues of Vallum: Contemporary Poetry in print and available for digital purchase. We also put out two more chapbooks in the Vallum Chapbook series. War Canticles by George Elliott Clarke, and House by Scott Cecchin, the 2022 Chapbook Award winner.
The 2022 Vallum Art Prize (formerly known as the Vallum Cover Award) was won by Nora Kelly for her series “Entangled,” which was published in issue 19:1 “Bridges.” Submissions for the 2023 Art Prize are open and you can find more information here.
In September we announced the winner and finalist for the 2022 Vallum Poetry Award. The winning poem, “resurgent artefacts” by Jasmine Gui and the finalist “Distance” by Emilie Lafleur will be published in our Spring 2023 issue.
A small gift for you!
To show our gratitude for your ongoing support we’ve decided to make all of our Poetry Reviews and Interviews accessible for free on the Vallum website starting in the new year. We hope this will support poetry authors and reviewers in sharing their work more widely!
To read future issues in print, receive chapbooks as soon as their released, or to get a digital subscription (which offers access to our archives) please subscribe!
Thanks to our funders!
Vallum is generously supported by the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Lloyd Carr-Harris Foundation, the ELF Foundation, and the Eric T. Webster Foundation.
